Relax and eat popcorn! It’s only a movie! Viewing the ocean realm on the world’s biggest movie screen in an IMAX theater makes you feel as if you are part of the scene. It’s as close to underwater as you can be without getting wet.

The people who make large-format movies get plenty wet. You can see their work in two such films, Dolphins and Island of the Sharks. To film the sharks, Michele and Howard Hall and their crew spent almost 1,800 hours underwater. They dived at Cocos Island, a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean. These waters teem with more sharks than any other place on the planet. And there are plenty of stingrays and moray eels too.

Click the photograph at left to enlarge.

During one dive Howard Hall saw hundreds of sharks. He wasn’t wearing a protective suit, but he was not nervous. “It’s an adventure,” he says. “The sharks are just not interested in us.” Sharks, says Hall, are really looking for a fish dinner.

Filming may look like fun, but it’s a lot of work. The Dolphins crew spent 12 hours a day searching for their “actors.” And crews have to haul hundreds of pounds of equipment over sea and land in all kinds of weather.

Danger? Adventure? It’s all in a day’s work for filmmakers for the giant screen.

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